


61 hours

by imna



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-03 23:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5310548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imna/pseuds/imna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers saves the free world on April 4, 2014. Jane's research is approved for SHIELD funding just in time for them to dissolve, typical. Phil Coulson mobilizes the scattered Avengers network and... smuggles them out of the country?</p><p>Darcy survives 61 hours with the one responsible for it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to reconcile the timelines for this almost destroyed me. Pre-Thor 2 and A3. Four days after CA:TWS. The timestamps are given M/D/Y and military time.

4/8/14 1800 /////

"WELL THAT'Sfucking stupid," Darcy snorted. "We're gonna, what, all sit around at the terminal, and pretend we don't know each other? Tell Coulson that's stupid. Tell him, Jane. He needs to know."  
  
Jane turned away so Darcy couldn't add that commentary to the call. "So we don't know who's taking what flight, or when, or if we're even going with anyone?"    
  
"It's for your safety, Dr. Foster, we simply don't know who to trust."  
  
Jane let that statement hang on the line, sharing a Look with Darcy. "That's one of the many, many problems with this plan," she said.  
  
"You won't be alone, Dr. Foster. We're spreading agents and cargo across multiple flights. The randomized itineraries will make it impossible for anyone to follow."  
  
"But we don't even know where we're going! And I'm not going without my equipment! This- all of it won't get through airport security!"  
  
"Let us worry about the details. Bring everything you need. Agent Barton will be outside in six hours."  
  
4/9/14 0700 /////

Darcy printed out a (useless) boarding pass at the Southwest Airlines kiosk, waited at the busy terminal for 28 minutes exactly, then snuck out for the last-call boarding of Air Italia 729. She rolled her overstuffed carryon down the jetway, dumped it at the gate, and queued up with Jane and Barton for the adjacent plane, where they boarded via ground stairs, left through the cargo hold, and rode the SkyChef truck all the way across the tarmac to United flight 640.

And all this was just _stage one_ of this who-even-knows-how-many-stage plan. It'd been kinda fun doing all the misdirection maneuvers, but constantly checking her phone for updates had drained her battery (well, those 28 solid minutes of Fruit Ninja didn't help) and now Darcy was stuck in the middle seat of flight 640 with nothing but the SkyMall catalogue. And some kid screaming two rows back. And Barton, in the aisle seat next to her, trying to grunt subtly into his earpiece under the noise of the engine checks. She elbowed him.

"What."

"Can you turn that thing off so it doesn't screw with the plane?"

"No."

"C'mon, Coulson will still be there when we land."

"No, now shush. No sir, negative, not you," he said to the earpiece, mumbling behind the flight instruction card. They must have been delivering the latest set of instructions because Barton was now marking things down on the back of his boarding pass. He signed off, gave the cabin a thorough stare-down, then settled in and took out a book. "Takeoff in four minutes," he told her. "We'll be there in eight hours."

And that. Was just. Stage. _O_ _ne._  Eight long hours of screaming babies, hot cabins, and snoring neighbors (Jane, window seat). She tried reading Barton's book over his shoulder, but it was boring; she tried watching the in-flight TV, but the screen kept glitching and returning her to the main menu; she tried talking to Jane, who'd been up all night packing her equipment, and who fell asleep as soon as Darcy began explaining her opinions re: Barton's literary preferences. Finally she gave up, plugged in her iPod, and tried to sleep.

4/9/14 2100 ///// 

"I demand to see her."

"Dr. Foster will arrive at Tromsø within 48 hours. We are taking the same precautions as we are with our own. She is traveling under protection. If you-"

"Tell me where she is so I may go to her."

"You're needed _here_ , Thor. Dr. Foster is safe. The flight plans are randomized, so we don't know where anyone is going until the last minute. We can't delay the flights just so-"

The door slammed open, and one of the phone techs (of course, the one assigned to Foster's itinerary) interrupted Coulson:

"Sir, we have news the location of the current Munich departure may be compromised. Dr. Foster has already boarded the flight."

4/9/14 1500 /////

Darcy woke up to her ears popping as they descended toward Paris. Her legs had gone a little numb and reached pins-and-needles status just in time for her group's call to de-board. They grabbed their luggage and then ran (or jogged and cursed, if their legs were tingly and their name was Darcy) across Le Bourget airport, where they were _supposed_ to scatter to separate flights, but where a last-minute update in Barton's earpiece landed them all on another flight together, this time to Munich.

That was stage two. It was only _supposed_ to take two hours. Of course it ended up taking more like four, after several boardings and de-boardings while they hunted for the plane that carried Jane's equipment in cargo, and Barton herded them around the airport- and up and down stairs like he'd never heard of an elevator before, what the fuck- and, finally, to the flight Jane was assigned.

When they finally parted ways, Darcy staged a slightly exaggerated goodbye before Jane's departure, while Barton hissed at them to  _cut it out_ because it was  _not part of the plan_ and could  _compromise their safety,_ as if two people hugging goodbye in an airport was unusual. Or like a giant neon sign saying, 'Hey HYDRA spies! There's a high-clearance asset of SHIELD escaping in this direction!'

Well, according to some guy named Sam Wilson, it was. He relieved Barton of duty while Darcy was still hugging Jane, gave them the code phrase ('the American werewolves have landed' get it, because their flight was Houston to Paris, ha ha, Coulson) that meant he was real-deal SHIELD, and then tried to separate them so Jane could get on her plane.

"We're all gonna end up at the same place, so you can save it for when we get there." He waved toward Jane's gate, where the flight was already boarding.

Darcy squeezed her friend tighter and whispered, "Don't ask which Barton I got it from, but I think Thor's gonna be on one of your transports. I heard it come in through the wire that they're moving him out too, and when he found out they were moving us, well, he got kinda upset, and wants to take the flights too, just in case. He's been bugging Coulson about it for hours."

"Really?" Christ, Jane's little stick arms could suddenly crush a girl's ribs. "Is he really? What else did you hear?"

"Let's go, ladies, hurry up."

"It could even be this one," Darcy said with an eyebrow waggle, and just like that, she saw Jane drop the burden of worries she'd been carrying since they had to pack up the lab and say goodbye to Puente Antiguo in the middle of the night. Wilson didn't get the chance to prod them again- Jane hurried to the gate, and Darcy hurried to a charging station to plug in her phone so she could catch her next flight's info.

She had two texts waiting:

**74353** : _lufthansa #1241 2138 athens_

**Mom** : _what do u mean travel?? have u seen news?? DO NOT FLY_

Wait, now three texts:

**40012** : _AT &T Free Msg: your international data plan is 50MB with $5.12/MB overage. Track usage in Settings>General>Usage>Reset Statistics. International data rate_ _applies. Unlimited domestic data does NOT apply at this location._

Whatever, she could bill SHIELD for it. If they still exist after all that. And if she's still got a job with them after all this. Darcy worried about it for maybe... half a minute. Then she remembered how difficult it was just to get Jane into the car to leave the lab, and how some poor SHIELD logistics team is probably still trying to talk Thor down from compromising the whole operation just to find Jane's plane. Those thoughts were the thoughts of a girl with job security, and she bought a slice of pizza to go with them. _  
_

Two hours and another slice later, she munched and wondered if Jane ever did get Thor on her travel detail. Jane and some other SHIELD assets were traveling under protection, Coulson had told them: constantly-changing details of one or two guards each. Assistants like Darcy were given the chance to catch a flight out of the US too, but without the detail. Darcy didn't think she'd mind, but after a few hours of watching the news loop through footage of D.C., and skulking through airports like they were being followed by trained killers, well, it was nice having some of SHIELD's jackbooted thugs around, even if they were Barton. 

She typed a message to let her mom know she was OK. It sent, but she got another message about roaming charges. Ugh. If SHIELD doesn't pay for this...

Wait.

If AT&T knew she was in Munich, does that mean her phone's location was traceable? She texted the number that had sent her itinerary:

> _is this you son of coul i have a question_

**74353** : _this line is_ _travel info only_

> _if_   _my phones charging me for roaming does that mean all the hydra spies at AT &T know where im roaming_

> _do u have my location?_

> _phil_

**74353** : _disable cellular data immediately. you were instructed to do so 23 hours ago. any line may compromised._

>  _u dont think_ _if ne1 was following they wouldv found me by now? ive been eating pizza alone in plain sight for 2hrs_

**74353:**   _we are changing you to the supervised travel group. look for barton or happy. disable cellular data. stay alert_

> _if u got thor can you send him_

**74353:** _negative_

>  _can i get a flight w a layover so i can sleep in a real bed_

**74353:** _negative_

Alright, fine, be rude. Darcy slouched into her seat until she was nearly horizontal. It was at least another  _hour_ until the next flight, with who knows how many swaps now that she was getting the high-clearance treatment, and however many more stages to the final destination.

On the bright side, she reasoned, it meant she was indeed valuable enough that SHIELD would be paying her phone bills. Cool.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darcy sarcasm on the AT&T thing, but hey. If HYDRA agents really did work at AT&T to spy on phones, at least they had a backup job after everything went to hell.


	2. Chapter 2

NO BARTON was forthcoming for TAROM flight 481. Instead, Darcy caught the Munich to Bucharest stage with the other agent, Happy. He did not live up to the name- possibly, she reasoned, because fate had seen fit to stick him with it, and also this career, and the middle seat in row 23.  
  
Happy spent the first hour of flight 481 trying to explain security measures to address Darcy's complaints re: why they ended up on this plane and not the first one they boarded, where they could’ve scored first class seating and free sleeping masks. Altering the flights plan of each person is crucial to their safety, he said. The node of SHIELD agents that was currently securing each transport (under Coulson’s direction, poor souls) had to ensure no single person could be traced to the final destination.

“All these flights are an extra layer of security,” he told her, using a tone that Darcy had begun to suspect was often used on Stark. “If anyone is tracked or discovered, they’ve got several ways out.”

Happy then went on to explain _in detail_ why the whole cellular data mishap was a Very Bad Thing that could have compromised the SHIELD node and their communications, but Darcy took his first hour of advice to heart (and the most immediate of the ‘several ways out’): she went to sleep.  
  
What? She’d been up damn near 24 hours, not counting the first flight’s fitful nap, and the drone of the engines and the SHIELD agent were like a siren’s call to naptime.  
  
She had a really weird dream:  
  
She was flying, Happy was there, talking about SHIELD and security and blah blah blah; her neck kinda hurt, and she was cold and there was a voice telling her to land and then Thor showed up. She woke up feeling more tired than before to realize that this wasn’t really a dream; she’d zonked out on the flight, got herself a neck cramp and a drool mark, and sort of woke up during plane’s landing announcement. When she woke up for good, the plane had already taxied to the gate and Thor was waiting right next to it, red cape and everything. He was not going unnoticed.  
  
“Aw, just look at him,” she said to Happy. “All the way from space, just to ride economy class in the name of his lady love.”  
  
Judging by the earpiece muttering and frantic texting on Happy’s part, Darcy guessed this constituted another Very Bad Thing for SHIELD’s security plan. There were more than a few covert whispers involving Jane, ground transport, and a place called Warsaw, which Darcy pretended she didn't hear and definitely didn't Google. She waved to Thor through the tiny window.  
  
“C’mon, let’s get him before airport security does.”  
  
4/10/15 0600 /////  
  
Happy also did not live up to his name as they disembarked the plane and met Thor at the gate. The agent probably had to listen to Security Breach Mode Coulson while Darcy was getting Thor-quality hugs, so she sort of understood this time. What she didn’t understand was why the big lug couldn’t stick around.  
  
“The whole reason we split up the flights and agents was so high-profile persons wouldn’t draw attention to the group.” He told them, trying to text through a dozen incoming messages of contingency plans and new flights. "It was safer that way, and- yes. Affirmative, sir, we're on our way out- and now we'll need more agents and resources just to get him safely through a civilian flight."  
  
"Hey, I can personally tell you that there is nothing safer than Thor," Darcy told him as they walked to the next terminal. "One time there was this alien robot thing-"  
  
"Ah, the Destroyer!" Thor boomed. "A powerful enemy, when I was a mortal-"  
  
"Would you _not,"_ Happy hissed at them, " _say that,_ right now, right here? We are trying to travel below the radar. Both of you need to _stick_ with the _plan,_ and at least _try_ to be discreet."

Darcy and Thor just looked at him, and then to each other. Darcy shrugged and sighed. "It's been like this pretty much the whole way," she told him.  
  
"I see," he said. After a moment of walking in silence, he added, "I do not want to bring trouble to your journey. But if any warriors of the Hydra do follow, I shall handle them."  
  
"We appreciate the offer, sir, but we have it handled here. They need you back at headquarters."

"Yes. I have come to find Jane Foster and guard her journey there." Ugh, it was all so romantic Darcy could vomit a rainbow bridge. 

"The doctor is traveling with a security team as we speak, and will arri-"

"Yes. I have heard this. I will take passage to the land of Warsaw and join them." 

Happy stopped. "Warsaw? Why?"

"That is where Jane Foster shall arrive."

"How did...? Who told you this?" He looked to Thor, and then to Darcy, who both returned the gaze and resolutely did not look at each other. 

"Ah well, who knows? You should probably get him on that flight though, yeah?" Darcy asked hopefully.

"How did you know we were here?" He asked Thor, a little rudely considering he was a god and all, Darcy thought. "And _why_ would you reveal the doctor's location to  _anyone_?" He asked Darcy,  _super rudely_ , considering she was BFFs with said god.

"I saw the Lady Darcy's message to the son of Co-"

"What Thor really means is," Darcy smoothly interrupted, "there was that whole thing with the phone that wasn't my fault, and it like, messed up everything, and Thor probably saw it when he was at the place, and also saw wherever Jane was going, and, you know, came here, because he didn't want to show up all obvious and cause a scene."

Happy sighed the sigh of the deeply put-upon. "Scrub the commercial flights," he spoke into his earpiece, "I need private transport."

"Now we're talking," Darcy said.


	3. Chapter 3

IT TOOK a few hours of coordinating with the unseen flight-bookers, and a lot of sitting around in an empty restaurant trying not to exist, but someone at SHIELD's fancy new HQ pulled through and booked them  _a private jet,_ and even got some of Jane's cargo on it.

"Anything else you want?" The waitress asked for the fourth time. They'd had nothing to do while Happy talked with the new SHIELD HQ (which Darcy heard from Thor was in a place called Tromsø, which Darcy heard from Google was in Norway), so they'd ordered some food, and Thor had thus far steadily plowed through every plate put in front of him.

"Yeah, what kinda wine you got?" Darcy didn't have much of the godlike hunger after that first cheeseburger, but she could definitely drink when the company card was paying.

"No, no wine, we're leaving! Just the check, please." Happy called from the table where he'd been working with a laptop, tablet, and something that looked like a WiFi router on steroids. "You two, finish up. We've got transport leaving in the hour."

4/10/15 0900 /////

Their "transport," which in the rush of last-minute bookings turned out to be a friggin’ commuter plane- one of those little puddle-jumpers with propellers on each wing- was waiting smack in the middle of the runway, about 200 feet from the gate, when the trio finally arrived at their terminal. The runway safety crew directed them through the emergency stairs and out onto the tarmac, and they walked alone toward the idling plane.

"We couldn't take one of those luggage car things? No one else cold?" Darcy said, trying to unpack the parka from her rolly suitcase while keeping up stride with the other two. "Agent _Barton_ let us ride the luggage car. And the SkyChef car. I thought it was 'cause, y'know, spies were after us-" she paused as she struggled to get her bulky sweater's sleeves into the coat, "-but now I think it's just 'cause he's lazy, and doing this for like,  _two straight days_ gets really old."

"If you can go two days, you can go another two hours." Happy told her.

"Days?" Thor asked. "I did not know your journey began so long ago."

"It wasn't that long, I slept a lot." Jane said, a floating face on Darcy's phone screen.

"Yeah, well, I didn't." Darcy griped. "You two better keep it down when I'm on the plane. I need a real nap."

4/10/15 1000 /////

It was probably supposed to seat around twenty passengers, but with Thor being, well… Thor, the pilots stuck him in the back row to balance out the weight. Darcy was buckling into the adjacent row, taking special care with the Super WiFi thing that was giving her phone the power of secure internet, and thus granting Thor the power of FaceTime until takeoff.

Happy and the two pilots fussed around with the luggage, securing things to the front row seats first, and moving the latest items to arrive into the cargo bay at the back. Darcy figured they were ready to leave when the pilots went to the cockpit- turned off the WiFi and phone, sorry Thor- but Happy said they were waiting for the other agent who would bring the last of the cargo.

The were starting the propellers and running the preflight checks when the agent came fifteen minutes later with the last of Jane's equipment. Darcy didn't recognize him as one of Coulson's usuals, but Happy did, and acted really weird about it. She couldn't hear much over the engines starting to budge the plane into motion, but when they started shouting to be heard over the noise, she caught:

Wasn’t he supposed to be flying with Rogers?  
and  
Yes, but got sent to join this flight when Steve was brought in to help with the border snafu involving Dr. Foster-

They were accelerating for takeoff when this final bit of information was exchanged, and Thor defied explicit instructions to remain seated, lurching toward the front to enquire with Happy on the safety of Jane; Darcy had to intervene and wrangle him back into the seat before the plane tipped over mid-takeoff. When they were in the air she turned on the Super WiFi, instrument sensitivity be damned, and called Jane on Skype to get the full story.

Turns out that his lady-love was stuck waiting in Warsaw with some equipment that was currently under scrutiny by an incredibly rude hazmat team, and was also having issues trying to arrange land travel to the border. Fifteen seconds of commiseration ensued (travel without the old SHIELD perks is a nightmare, am I right? Did you hear Barton snoring on the flight? How’s customs handling the viking space tech?) before Darcy handed it over to her seat buddy. Showing Thor how to properly use the tiny phone screen was an exercise in patience for her tired brain, but she couldn’t complain; compared to the past 42 hours of economy flights, traveling with the big guy and two agents (seated up front to ensure optimal weight distribution) on WiFi-capable private charter? Practically a dream.

 


	4. Chapter 4

OH DEAR god, it was a waking nightmare.

First, it snowed. Which, like, not normally a big deal, it happens all the time in Romania. But the wind was buffeting the plane around like a propeller toy, and since it was already pitch black at 9pm (well, 11am according to Darcy's watch), she could see nothing except snow and darkness from the window. The pilots weren't too happy about it, but apparently they were used to it, and managed to work out a flight path around the storm using Happy's internet device and by talking with the flight people of SHIELD Tromsø.

Then the new guy up and  _freaked out_. He'd been arguing with Happy and the pilots about their plan to go around the storm, insisting they not fly over whatever they planned to fly over, and then trying to tell the SHIELD team about it, but their new flight path through the storm was blocking comms, and then everything was angry yelling and Happy using his Agent voice and Thor getting mad, which was actually scary. Darcy correctly reasoned that being trapped in an aluminum tube thousands of feet in the air with this new guy, Barnes, was maybe the scariest, but took some comfort in the fact that Thor could  _literally fly_ , and she was strapped in next to him and away from all the yelling people. _In case of emergency_ , she thought, _remain calm and proceed to nearest Thor._

4/10/14 1100 /////

She'd tried to nap a little, even though Barton had specifically told her not to do that, just for this one trip, but this one trip has gone on for two days and six timezones and it is human nature for tired bodies to tend toward sleep (Newton’s 23rd law or something) and the lull of droning engines got the better of her. She slept and heard nothing but propeller whine when the copilot pulled a gun on Barnes.

By the time she was awake enough to register shouting over the engines, Thor was gone, Copilot was dead, and Pilot was firing a real live gun toward her end of the cabin.

Her immediate regret was unbuckling her seatbelt to run, because really, where was she gonna go? Untethered, she hit the floor when something rocked the aircraft from outside and removed the sections where passengers #9-15 would normally go, leaving a giant ragged hole in the cabin.

She hit her chin so hard on the aisle seat that she didn’t even feel pain, just a strange tingling numbness. She pulled herself up as the world dipped and rolled, the wind howling so loud it drowned out everything but the engines screeching-

She pitched forward and made for the rear cabin, where the extra equipment had been stored behind a divider curtain. She yanked aside the curtain and lunged behind the furthest container, finding a foldup hostess seat bolted to the rear wall. **  
**

/////

Darcy slaps the hostess seat down from the wall and straps herself in- tries to do it fast but her hands are shaking too bad to fasten the buckles and good CHRIST there’s a lot of noise from up front. She should hide, she thinks, _hide hide hide_  but she stays in the seat and the buckle clicks home.

It’s so violently windy in this flying metal tube that equipment is sliding around everywhere, and there's snow and debris blowing around; she’s shielding her eyes and face and thus doesn’t notice the ground approaching at speed until gravity gets weird and the separator curtain slides open and all the way down the aisle she sees Barnes, down in the cockpit; actually, at the wheel, leaning against the plane’s slow roll, turning them-

_****  
_


	5. Chapter 5

NO IMPACT. One minute she’s strapped in and contemplating the how she's supposed to hide if she's also buckled into a chair. Next thing she knows, she's unbuckled from her harness and sliding off the plastic seat. The metal hull tears and groans as Barnes pulls her out of the wreck. It’s so hard to see, so dark outside, but she thinks it hadn’t been when… it was sunset before at the airport, but it’s dark now, she can’t see the trees. Someone’s talking

( _can you hear me?_ )

but all she thinks is

( _come on_ )

that it’s too warm for snow, and yet it’s there, a bright electric orange alive thing in the dark. She hears it crunching under boots

( _stay awake_ )

she sees stark black shadows against fire-lit ice

( _stay with me_ )

she can’t, she’s tired

sleep.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So begins hour one of sixty-one.

DARCY WAKES UP with her ears ringing from a rifle’s loud report. She shivers, mostly from the cold; her ears ache terribly and she thinks maybe the right one is bleeding. Her eyes burn when she tries to open them. She is freezing, not cold, no, _f-f-f-freezing_ , there is ice forming on her coat and hands and hair. She has never felt so sore in her life.

Her jacket is stiff and resists when she tries to move, so she doesn’t. She rests her head against the wide trunk at her back and surveys her surroundings through hooded eyes: she sees trees and snow. Lots of that. She can’t focus too well but it seems like they go on forever. And it’s quiet. And cold.

Her feet are especially cold. One boot, of the pair that was too big to fit in her carry-on (and were thus necessarily part of the travel outfit), is half unlaced and packed full of snow. The other one has a firecracker stuck in it. She tries to dislodge it but her numb feet and frozen hands do not cooperate.  

Something off to the side: a third boot, a big 'un, nearly buried in the snow. She wonders who lost it, and how they’re getting around without it. It’s damn cold out here.

A deafening _kra-KOW_ from her right. The boot jolts and Darcy thinks for one horrified moment that she’s looking at a dead thing getting punched full of bullets. Then it moves- digs for purchase in the snow and resettles- and Darcy sees it’s got a leg attached to it, and a person attached to that, lying out belly-down in the lee of a snowbank almost four feet away. They’ve got an arm tucked around something she can’t quite see. Her cold numb lips try to say

_help_

but there’s another skull-splitting _kra-KOW_ from too close and she flinches back, buffeted by a force that rattles bone. Her eyes are squeezed shut again but she knows what (who) she saw lying there and she wants to say

_BARNES_

and

_get up please get up_

but he moves before her lips can, the snow muffling almost all sound as he hauls himself up.

He’s dragging something else up with him. It must be heavy because he falls down- or ducks, maybe- right when a distant _pak-pak_ clips through the crisp winter air.

He’s behind the tree when those two bullets disappear into the snowbank. They leave behind two little vapor puffs and two neat, dark holes and one Darcy Lewis, trying to form the words, “What the fuck was that?”

The echo is swallowed up by the forest. Barnes is crouched low, utterly still like everything else in this damned place, breathing fog into the cold air. It’s so quiet that she hears his coat scraping the tree’s bark, hears his exhale, hears a click-snap-click as he folds up the little leggy pieces of a huge rifle- and where the hell’d that even come from? the plane?- and ejects a spent shell into the snow at their feet.

“Why is it so cold,” is the first thing Darcy croaks out, because it was the first thing she thought when she woke up, and her brain has yet to finish processing the fact that she’s smack in the middle of some kind of firefight. There’s no answer, and she watches while Barnes finds the dropped shell and chucks it away; she sees it glint in the pale light, and apparently someone else does, too, because the next shot rips a piece of bark off their tree and buries itself in a nearby log. She screams.

“Move.” He grunts, hoisting up the rifle and carefully stepping over. Darcy scoots into his old spot and covers her head as another bullet grazes the tree and careens off in a rain of splinters.

She takes a deep breath and holds it- the urge to scream _what the fuck is happening_ is hard to tamp down, but there’s Barnes, peeking out of cover and slowly, _slowly_ nosing the rifle into position, bracing against the trunk and bending an eye to the scope. There’s one silent second to aim and he pulls the trigger and holy fuck, whoever was back there is either dead or deaf because that thing is _loud_.

Her ears are ringing thunder when he crouches down to her level and swings a backpack off one shoulder, digs through it, and retrieves a black handgun. She doesn’t hear the click when he pulls the slide, or what he says to her as he tucks it into the back of his waistband; all she sees are puffs of breath clouding around his face, his mouth moving with silent words, a look that asks a question. She shakes her head; she can't hear anything except a high-pitched ringing.

Barnes tosses two crinkly packages into her lap. She stares at them. It takes a moment, then there’s heat, wonderful heat seeping from the little foil packs onto her legs and sweet Jesus they burn, they’re so warm and she’s so cold they hurt to touch, but Darcy rubs them against her face and ears and neck anyway. In moments, she’s defrosted enough to ask questions.

“Where are we?” is the first one. Then, realizing that she already knows where they are- a forest in the middle of fucking nowhere, near a downed plane intended for Warsaw, Poland - she asks the more important, “What happened?.”

She knows the answer to that, too, recalling the sound of propeller blades grinding together, and howling wind in the unpressurized cabin. There’s only one real question, and she gets to it last:

“Thor?”

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hours 2-3: Barnes picks a direction.

As they picked their way through the woods, Darcy's thoughts revolved around the backpack Barnes carried. Where it came from, she wasn’t exactly sure. As far as she could figure, he’d either found it in the murder-pilots’ equipment, or recovered the plane’s emergency kit and doctored it up a bit. With guns, yes, but also with chemical heat packets and about five quadrillion flares, which they used only one of. He’d led them to the treeline after about an hour (she guessed) of trekking through the forest; Barnes then lit the one flare and planted it upright on the border of a snow field while Darcy shook the snow out of her boot. When he came back, she asked where the guns came from.

“The plane.”

“Where is it?” They tromped through snow that couldn’t decide whether to support their weight or break and sink them knee-deep every few steps. He pointed somewhere off to the right, toward the big field, then veered left around a snow bank. Darcy broke through the crust maybe a dozen more times before giving up and following in Barnes' snow trail.

“Is that where you got the flares?” She called out as she caught up. She still had one sticking out of her shoe.

He wasn’t very chatty. The agent stood around staring at the trees and the sky for a minute, then pulled another heat packet from the bag and gave it to her. “Keep moving,” he told her.

“Where? Aren’t we going back?” she asked. “Back to the plane? Where it’s safe?”

“No,” he said.

“Why? Won’t Thor go looking there first? What about using the flares? Where are we even going?”

“No. People are looking for it.”

“Exactly, so why-”

“The people who shot us down are looking for it.”

Darcy stopped. “Wh-what?”

“Looking for us, too.” He walked on while Darcy stood stunned, holding the heat packets in her cold, ungloved hands. He checked the sky again, then looked back at the field. “We’ll go north,” Barnes decided.

They went north.


End file.
